


Never Wrestle a Wookiee

by rudbeckia



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Finn Poe and Leia mentioned, Gen, Hux makes a tactical error
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Rey and Chewbacca are helping Leia evacuate the rebel base when they have a run-in with a certain red-haired, bad-mannered General. It is not a good day for Hux.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ninjacat1515 on tumblr for the prompt.

It hadn't beeen easy to evacuate the base, but somehow they'd done it. All personnel accounted for, and most of the equipment. Finn had barely been conscious a full cycle but Poe had taken responsibility for Finn's safety as far as his assigned duties allowed. General Leia had scolded him twice - his primary duty was to move the fleet of X-wings and A-wings without detection by the scattered remnants of the First Order. Finn, she lectured him, was a trained soldier and strong enough not to need a nursemaid.

Even Chewie and Rey showed up in time with the empty holds of the _Falcon_ to help move equipment ahead of the fleet to their new location. Leia spared only as much attention as it took to give a warm greeting and establish that Luke was not ready to come home. 

With efficiency and speed necessitated by imminent peril, the _Falcon_ soon heaved with precious cargo. Chewie grumbled that Han would have liked to see them engage in a more profitable business activity but Rey only smiled and sealed the doors, glancing to catch the Wookiee's averted face still dulled by sorrow. She sighed, patted Chewie's hand and murmured, _"I wish he was here too,"_ before checking their jump calculations and lurching them into hyperspace.

The journey was quiet for a while. Chewbacca nodded in the copilot's chair, gold-brown fur illuminated in warm shades by the control panel lights and eyes heavy lidded, until Rey told him to go rest. He made only a token protestation before clambering from the cockpit and lumbering out. 

Rey grinned and shook her head, long ago having given up being surprised by the ageing craft's tendency to leave hyperspace of its own free will. Chewie even slept through their stomach-dragging, head-scrambling re-entry to normal space. She leaned over the flight deck panels, flipped switches and pushed buttons until she identified the fault. The hyperdrive. Again. That fool Unkar had really messed with what had once been a pretty sweet system, top of the range maybe a lifetime ago. A Wookiee lifetime. Rey sighed, collected a toolbox from under a floor panel and got to work.

_**Unidentified YT freighter please respond. ******_

Rey scowled at the comms panel, both hands occupied with spilled guts from a panel at head height and a laser soldering tool clamped between her teeth. Whoever they were, they could wait. Rey continued her repairs with deft fingers and surprisingly accurate blasts from the laser tool.

_**Unidentified YT freighter please respond immediately with your identification and security code. ******_

Rey cursed, dropping the tool from her teeth and shaking her burned finger. She closed up the panel and weighed up the options - wake Chewie and respond, giving them time to recalculate and test if her repairs were good, or shunt them into hyperspace with no course corrections to account for spatial drift. 

_**Unidentified YT freighter, prepare to be boarded ******_

Rey stared at the vessel looming above, swallowing them, her heart suddenly pounding.  
"CHEWIE! COMPANY!"

Had they been planetside, Chewbacca would have informed Rey that he was _not a morning Wookiee_ and gone back to sleep until nature decided he'd had enough shuteye. By the time Rey flattened herself against a bulkhead, blaster in hand, and peered around it at the groaning, screeching hatch as it inched unwillingly open, Chewie had decided that whoever interrupted his precious slumber was going to regret it deeply, but possibly not for long. He stood a little behind Rey, groaning in irritation, his bowcaster in his hands. 

The hatch gave and slid open as smoothly as it ever had. Footsteps clanged as three people marched up the ramp and into the _Falcon._

It was not a clean fight. Rey's aim would have been perfect had she remembered about the safety catch on her blaster. Chewie got two troopers with his bowcaster before the third interloper shot the weapon clean out of his hands. This gave Rey time to curse and fix her blaster, catching the red headed man a glancing blow that only half stunned, as she pointed and yelled _DEAL WITH THAT ONE WHILE I GET US OUT OF HERE_ and bolted for the cockpit.

Chewbacca glared. He let out a roar that was half warning and half promise. The man only straightened up and sneered.  
"I am not afraid of an animal like you. I am General Armitage Hux of the First Order and I claim this ship for Kylo Ren. Oh?" Hux smirked. "You recognise that name, don't you? I owe you _personally_ for your attack on my _Starkiller_ and I am sure Supreme Leader Snoke would be very grateful to me for delivering that _girl_ to him."

Chewbacca snarled and lunged. Hux raised his weapon, but too slow. The Wookiee bodyslammed him into the wall, forcing breath from his lungs. Footsteps running in synchronous rhythm towards the _Falcon_ made Chewbacca roar and ululate down the passageway towards where Rey thumped into the pilot seat. She heard, she paused, hands over the controls, she closed her eyes.

Hux recovered and laughed without humour.  
"This ship will be crawling with stormtroopers any second and you want to brawl like a drunkard in a filthy bar-room? Animal!"

Chewbacca roared urgent encouragement at Rey again while he swung a flat hand across Hux's shoulders, sending him sprawling before he got the chance to retrieve his blaster, and slammed a wall panel. In the cockpit, Rey nodded.

_If Han Solo could do it, I can do it. I can do this. I can do this. I can–_

Outside in the hangar, Stormtroopers tumbled and fell from the closing ramp, and gazed in short-lived surprise as the _Falcon's_ hyperdrive engine whined into life and the ship vanished.

After several minutes of breathing exercises, Rey set the autopilot and headed back to check on Chewie. She found him tidying up. The lifeless shells of two stormtroopers stacked against the airlock door where waste was usually jettisoned before a hyperspace jump. A third human, breathing but battered, lay under Chewie's enormous right foot.

"That was a great idea, Chewie! Han Solo is teaching me things even though–" she swallowed. "Well. Now we know a jump to hyperspace straight from the hangar bypasses First Order shields. Who is that?"  
Chewie rolled his eyes and sighed out a few moans.  
"General Hux! Are you sure?"  
Chewie stared and growled once.  
"Sorry. It's just, he was with Kylo Ren, he was looking for Luke Skywalker too. No!" She shook her head at a terse suggestion from Chewie regarding how many bodies to eject with the ship's waste.

"Make sure he's not carrying a tracker. I bet General Leia would like to interrogate this prisoner herself."


End file.
